[ti:Google Honors First Native American Woman Engineer] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM [00:00.04]This is What's Trending Today... [00:03.88]The search engine Google celebrated on Thursday [00:08.12]what would have been the 110th birthday [00:12.72]of the first Native American woman engineer. [00:18.20]Google honored Mary Ross with a special Google Doodle on its homepage. [00:25.65]Ross was born on August 9, 1908, in the state of Oklahoma. [00:34.92]She was the great-granddaughter of John Ross, [00:38.96]the longest-serving chief of the Cherokee Nation. [00:45.32]Her work is considered critical to the early stages of the age of space travel. [00:54.08]Ross showed special abilities in math and science from an early age. [01:01.84]As a student, she developed an interest in aviation, [01:07.04]or the practice of flying aircraft. [01:11.20]She went on to earn a master's degree in mathematics [01:17.04]from Colorado State Teachers College [01:20.60]-- now called the University of Northern Colorado. [01:26.08]During World War II, Ross began working [01:30.64]for the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation as a mathematician. [01:37.32]There, she was urged to complete work in aeronautical engineering. [01:44.44]She earned a special certification in the field [01:49.02]from the University of California - Los Angeles in 1949. [01:55.72]Ross was later chosen to join Lockheed's top-secret [02:00.92]Skunk Works team that worked on aircraft designs. [02:07.36]The name refers to a group that is permitted [02:11.52]to work independently on advanced projects. [02:16.28]She was the only female engineer among the team's 40 members. [02:23.20]Early on, she researched defense systems. [02:28.40]By the late 1950s, her work centered on satellites [02:33.32]and a series of space rockets called Agenda. [02:39.20]The rockets were extremely important in the 1960s during the Apollo moon program. [02:47.81]Ross also helped develop early design ideas for space travel between planets, [02:56.04]including flyby space flights to study Venus and Mars. [03:03.08]Ross retired from Lockheed in 1973. [03:08.44]But she continued to give talks at high schools and colleges [03:14.48]to encourage more women and Native Americans to study engineering. [03:21.60]Mary Ross died in 2008, a few months before her 100th birthday. [03:30.05]Many celebrated Ross' life on social media. [03:35.76]The National Science Foundation wrote on Twitter Thursday, [03:40.32]"engineers like Mary Ross are an inspiration to women everywhere. [03:46.76]Women and minorities continue to face challenges [03:51.10]and break through barriers in engineering." [03:56.08]Scientists on Twitter wrote that Thursday's Doodle [04:01.24]introduced them to Mary Ross for the first time. [04:07.04]Twitter user Aaron Perez, for example, wrote: [04:11.40]"Mary Ross was an engineer who pioneered in the field of satellites. [04:17.60]I never would [have] known if it wasn't for the doodle. [04:22.32]Women engineers deserve more recognition." [04:27.24]And that's What's Trending Today. [04:30.16]I'm Lucija Millonig. 更多听力请访问51VOA.COM